Att komma hem… (homecoming)

I have been gone for six months. I haven’t been home sick once. But it’s funny what happens when you KNOW you are heading home, even when it’s just for a two weeks holiday. It is like a familiar song starts playing. First in the back ground but slowly it amplifies and the closer I get to the 6th of September, more clearly I can hear the chant of the Swedish ensemble, golden shoes and an early 90’s Carola captivated by a stormy wind…

“Att komma hem ska vara en schlager” by Per Hagman is my favorite book. “Coming home should be like a schlager” It doesn’t translate. He is the only author I know, that can make Swedish so beautifully untranslatable, to the point where I find myself trying but give up because the words are perfect and hold so many untold stories it would never make sense. It’s him and Jocke Berg from Kent. And Astrid Lindgren of course. Reading Per Hagman is poetry.

He takes you on his days and nights adventures in cities like Stockholm, Dubai, Marseille, Milano, Kairo, Rome and Skövde. It is a drifting story about belongingness and scattered memories. Pieces never quite corresponding, like a broken puzzle. But his childish smile always finds its path up his cheeks.

It is a book that I carry on my own adventures and that I have recommended and given to friends along the way. Not everyone appreciates it as much as me. But not everyone knows what it’s like to feel at home anywhere, under the stars.

I don’t know if I will hear the schlager on the landing track of Arlanda but I have Per Hagmans book in my suitcase and somehow, that is comforting. Besides, I hate schlager.

No, I know which song that will be playing in my headphones up in the sky…